Sas, Jean. Personal interview. 9 July 2018.
· For my interview I decided to interview the assistant project manager of the construction division of the de Moya group. In this interview I asked Mr. Sas about his day-to-day life as a Civil Engineer. I began with more personal questions about his life and who he is as a person and then got into the questions more related to civil engineering. He gave me very detailed accounts of some of the projects he has completed with his company including fixing major highways and building bridges over bodies of water in order to alleviate traffic in specific parts of Miami. Mr. Sas was also able to tell me about how he got to where he is in civil engineering and gave me some tips that could help me in my journey on this path. This source relates to my topic because it is a primary source from a person that is already apart of the civil engineering community. This source relates to my other sources by being a first hand account into all these different sources and then giving a different perspective on them. This interview provides experiences that you cannot find in a journal online.
Tennant, Stuart, et al. "Industrial Work Placement in Higher Education: A Study of Civil Engineering Student Engagement." Industry and Higher Education, vol. 32, no. 2, 2018, pp. 108-118, https://login.proxy.lib.fsu.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=eric&AN=EJ1175082&site=eds-livehttp://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0950422218756384.
· In my second source Tennant explains the importance of internships within the civil engineering profession. He goes on to say that without work experience many undergraduate students looking to go into this line of work might be very overwhelmed and not have an idea of what is expected of them. This source relates to topic of my research paper because it strongly explains how college students must prepare for a career in civil engineering. This relates to my interview because Mr. Sas says that while he was in college what really helped him prepare for the job he has now is not all the rigorous courses that are required in school but his internships and work experience that he was able to acquire with the Odebrecht group. I learned that this job is more of a “learning on the job” type of career and most people get hired out of college without any experience solely based on how much potential the employer believes you have.
Jeong, Hyung S., et al. "Automated Contract Time Determination System for Highway Projects." Automation in Construction, vol. 18, no. 7, 2009, pp. 957-965, http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=43526718&site=ehost-live, doi:10.1016/j.autcon.2009.04.004.
· This source helps explain just one of the main jobs that Mr. Sas has to perform at his job as a Assistant Project Manager. As well as expanding as on the idea that technology is helping this profession become more efficient and more profitable. I didn’t realize just how important contract time was when Mr. Sas was explaining it to me but after reading this I now have a good sense how just how crucially getting the contract time right is. Making sure that the contract time is right helps plan out the “budgeting, planning, monitoring and even litigation purposes” which are especially important when dealing with the Florida Department of Transportation. There is a new system that can help engineers determine just how much time they will need in order to complete their project with the most efficiency and best quality. Most of the Departments of Transportations around the country don’t have set rules when it comes to contract time so they just base it on previous projects which is not always the smartest way to do it because not all constructions are cookie cutter and some can have set backs that others wouldn’t.
Kraft, Elizabeth, and Keith R. Molenaar. "Quality Assurance Organization Selection Factors for Highway Design and Construction Projects." Journal of Management in Engineering, vol. 31, no. 5, 2015, pp. 1-9, http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=109001185&site=ehost-live, doi:10.1061/(ASCE)ME.1943-5479.0000289.
This source just supplies more insight into what a construction company must go through in order to make sure they are able to finish a project on time. Not only do they have to deal with physical setbacks like weather, traffic and safety precautions but they must deal with these Quality Assurance Organizations (QAO) which as the name implies have to test both the design and construction aspects of the building process. Yet this article goes into details on how these practices are changing as there is less and less funding into the State Highway Agency (STA) which used to be in charge of all the quality checks. Nowadays they are looking more into outsourcing these jobs to other companies, which lowers the quality that these projects had before.